“Let’s concentrate our power,” Sam said.
Standing an arm’s length from each other at the gondola’s center point, they tried again. This time, they got the gondola two feet off the ground.
“I’ll hold it,” Sam said through clenched teeth. “Try a leg press.”
Remi rolled onto her back, wriggled beneath the gondola, then pressed her feet against the edge. “Ready!”
“Heave!”
The gondola rolled up and over onto its side.
“One more time,” Sam said.
They repeated the drill, and soon the gondola was sitting upright. Remi peered inside. She gasped and backed away.
“What?” Sam asked.
“Stowaways.”
They walked up to the gondola.
Lying at the far end of the wicker bottom amid a jumble of rigging and bamboo tubes was a pair of partially mummified skeletons. The remainder of the gondola, they could now see, was divided into eighths by wicker cross struts wide enough to also serve as benches.
“What’s your guess?” Remi asked. “Captain and copilot?”
“It’s possible, but a gondola this size could hold fifteen people at least-it might take that many to handle all this rigging and the balloons as well.”
“Balloons . . . as in plural?”
“We’ll know more when I see the rest of the rigging, but I think this was a full-on dirigible.”
“And these were the sole survivors.”
“The rest may be . . .” Sam jerked his head toward the crevasse.
“That’s no way to go.”
“We can speculate later. Let’s keep going.”
After securing the rigging so it would hang off the end of the gondola and not get wedged against the crevasse wall, Sam and Remi took up stations on either end of the gondola and pushed in unison until the wicker bottom began sliding over the ice. As they neared the crevasse, they picked up speed, then gave the gondola a final shove. It slid the last few feet, bumped over the edge, and disappeared from view. Sam and Remi ran forward.
“Always trust your instincts,” Remi said with a smile.
The gondola sat wedged between the crevasse’s walls about a foot below the edge.
Sam climbed in and, careful to avoid the mummies, walked the length of the gondola. He proclaimed it solid. Remi helped him back up.
“Every home needs a roof,” she said.
They walked the plateau together collecting pieces of the Bell’s aluminum exterior large enough to bridge the crevasse, then began layering them over the gondola until only a narrow slot remained.
“You’ve got a flair for this,” Sam told her.
“I know. One last touch: camouflage.”
Using a bowl-like chunk of the Bell’s windshield, they collected about five gallons of water from the runnel, which they poured over the gondola’s aluminum roof, followed by several layers of snow.
They stepped back to admire their handiwork.
Sam said, “ “Once it freezes, it’ll look like part of the ice sheet.”
“One question: why the water?”
“So the snow would stick to the aluminum. If our hunch is correct and we’re visited by another Z-9 tonight, we don’t want the rotor downwash exposing our shingles.”
“Sam Fargo, you’re a brilliant man.”
“That’s the illusion I like to create.”
Sam looked up at the sky. The sun’s lower rim was dropping behind a jagged line of peaks to the west.
“Time to hunker down and see what the night brings.”
With their supplies either stuffed into the duffel or buried in the snow, Sam and Remi retreated to their shelter. In the quickly dwindling twilight, they took inventory of the duffel’s contents.
“What’s this?” Remi asked, pulling out the lumbar pack Sam had snagged just before leaping from the Z-9.
“That’s a-” He stopped, frowned, then smiled. “That, my dear, is an emergency parachute. But to you and me, it’s about a hundred fifty square feet of blanket.”
They extracted the chute from the pack and soon they were huddled tightly inside a white fabric cocoon. Relatively warm and so far safe, they chatted quietly, watching the light fade into complete darkness.
They slowly drifted off to sleep.
Some time later Sam’s eyes sprung open. The blackness around them was complete. Wrapped in his arms, Remi whispered, “Do you hear it?”
“Yes.”
In the distance came the chopping thud of helicopter rotors.
“What are the chances it’s a rescue party?” Remi asked.
“Virtually none.”
“Thanks for playing along.”
The sound of the rotors slowly increased until Sam and Remi were certain the helicopter had dropped into the valley. A few moments later a bright spotlight swept over the crevasse; blinding white slivers of light arced through the gaps in the roof.
Then the light was gone, fading as it skimmed over the plateau. Twice more it returned and went away.
Then, suddenly, the helicopter’s engine changed in pitch.
“Coming in to hover,” Sam whispered.
Sam grabbed the pistol from where he had tucked it beneath his leg and switched it to his right hand.
The downwash came. Jets of icy air and swirling snow filled the gondola. Based on the shadows cast by the searchlight, the helicopter seemed to be crabbing sideways over the plateau, pivoting this way, then that way, either looking for them and/or survivors among their missing comrades.
Sam and Remi had left the Z-9’s tail jutting from the runnel as a clue to the helicopter’s fate. Anyone lucky enough to survive a plunge to the lake would have certainly drowned soon after. It was a conclusion that Sam and Remi prayed this search party would make.
Doggedly, their visitors made three more passes over the plateau. Then as suddenly as it had appeared, the spotlight went dark, and the rotors faded into the distance.
34
NORTHERN NEPAL
Despite the extreme cold, their gondola cave served them well, the snow-covered roof not only protecting them from the wind but also trapping a precious fraction of their body heat. Ensconced in the parachute canopy, their parkas, caps, and gloves, they slept deeply, if sporadically, until the sun peeking through the aluminum shingles woke them.
Though wary of another visit from the Chinese, Sam and Remi knew that to survive they would have to find a way out of the valley.
They climbed out of the gondola and set about making breakfast. From the Bell’s wreckage, they’d also managed to scrounge nine tea bags and a half-torn bag of dehydrated stroganoff. From the Z-9, Sam had unknowingly picked up a packet of rice crackers and three cans of what looked like baked mung beans. They split one of these and shared a cup of tea, the water for which they boiled inside the empty can.
They both agreed it was one of the best meals they’d ever had.
Sam took his last sip of tea, then said, “I was thinking last night-”
“And talking in your sleep,” Remi added. “You want to build something, don’t you?”
“Our mummified friends in the gondola got here by hot-air balloon. Why don’t we leave the same way?” Remi opened her mouth to speak but Sam pushed on. “No, I’m not talking about resurrecting their balloon. I’m thinking more along the lines of a . . .” Sam searched for the right term. “Franken-Balloon.”
Remi was nodding. “Some of their rigging, some of ours . . .” Her eyes brightened. “The parachute!”
“You read my mind. If we can shape it and seal it up, I think I have a way of filling it. All we need is enough to lift us out of this valley and onto one of those meadows we saw to the south-four or five miles at most. From there we should be able to walk to a village.”
“It’s still a long shot.”
“Long shots are our specialty, Remi. Here’s the truth of it: in these temperatures, we won’t survive for more than five days. A rescue party might come before that, but I’ve never been a big fan of ‘might.’”